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12 WORLD OF SCRIBES Maina Muiruri When Christmas goodies disrupted normal newsroom operations The approach of the Christmas Photographers who should have been putting final touches to pictures of the day would divert their creativity to helping off load the truck and New Year festive season brings to mind a time when normal operations in the newsroom used to be disrupted by the mood of the season. Those days, when the shilling could hold its head high against the US dollar and when many companies had a surplus column on their balance sheet, the media used to be a default beneficiary of goodies prompted by the generosity that accompanies the season. Commonest items from the con- stant list of goodies were calendars, beer, wines, spirits and any other such liquids to keep the throats of editors and their teams irrigated well enough to remind them in the next one year that such and such a company deserves good press. Such were moments that many a reporter or a photographer may have lived for in December, but which editors dreaded because of the disruption they inflicted on the smooth flow of work. The drinks would arrive in a style that clearly showed that the delivery did not see the difference between a newsroom and a bar. You see, it’s one thing to cope with a big breaking news story in the newsroom, but quite another thing to handle a sudden, unannounced arrival of a lorry full of crates of beer meant for immediate distribution to a group of very thirsty scribes - the profession is reputed to have a number of longhours drinkers. What would follow next is grind- ing to halt of all important work that had been going on for the production of the next day’s newspaper. All business would from then on have a bearing to the delivery. Photographers who should have been putting final touches to pictures of the day would divert their creativity to helping off load the truck. Editors trying to instill order back into the newsroom may as well have been addressing empty bottles as distribution would have began without order. The editor himself may not have had uncompromising authority to instill order since his desk would be laden with gift-wrapped bottles, complete with his name from other givers. Work in the newsroom on such a day would wobble on to a sloppy finish as the newsroom slowly turned into a bar. In a newsroom where Yours Truly once toiled, an editor was known to have written a headline in what could have been described as reverse mode, corrupting the famous ‘Mother of all Battles’ quote by Saddam Hussein to read, ‘Battle of all Mothers’. Another editor was known to have placed a picture of an elephant upside-down, to which a colleague wondered: ‘Things must have been elephant for someone to place a whole jumbo upside-down.’ So much for the good gone days of unfettered generosity that would invade newsrooms once in a year. These days, with the economy struggling against so many woes, even an editor would be lucky to get a gift wrapped packet of fruit juice. Which is good for the desk since all headlines are guaranteed to remain straight and stable come Christmas and New Year. Yours Truly is a teetotaler and remains stable through the season. All in an editor’s day! The guy who declared himself ‘King of Kenya’ Reporter’s Diary Patrick Wachira During a recent visit to Nakuru, I bumped into, or rather, he sniffed me out, a character going by the nondescript names of Harrison Githaiga Gacheru. As far as idiosyncracies go, Gacheru is in a class of his own, for, long before Ebola taught us not to shake hands, Gacheru had already decided to keep his hands to his own. Not that there were any health concerns that prompted him to (not) do this, but Gacheru does not shake hands. Or maybe he was aware of the British convention in which you shake hands the first time you meet someone, and thereafter just say “hi” or merely nod. Gacheru is a fairly well known figure in Nakuru’s social circles because in one evening, he will patronise several joints, stopping here and there to chat up old friends and start up new ones. All he may ask for is a cup of tea as he smokes away. But the story of Gacheru dates back to the early 90s, when Yours Truly was a junior reporter in Nakuru. During one of my rounds at the local law courts, I chanced on his name in the court registry, as I checked out the day’s cases. Nothing there, I thought. Only when he was arraigned in court a few minutes later, accused of declaring himself “King of Kenya,” did the drama really start. Never in the history of Kenya had anyone declared himself king, or be accused of doing so. As fate would have it, the matter was to be heard before then Senior resident Magistrate, Charles Rinjeu, a happy-go-lucky bloke who became so popular with his easy camaraderie with litigants that his courtroom was always full. Even the taking of the plea was pure drama. After the prosecutor read the charges, Gacheru started off on a tangent, asking the entire court if there was, indeed, any offence revealed in the charge sheet, which forced the magistrate to enter a plea of not guilty. When the hearing of the case proper started, the arresting officer, whose name I forget, was in trouble as soon as he opened his mouth. But he gave his testimony, saying how he arrested the poor guy who had technically abrogated the country’s constitution. And then it was time for Gacheru to cross-examine the witness. He brought the house down when he asked the police officer if he knew of any statute remind him to answer the questions. In one instance, the cop was so lost for words that he merely stared, forcing the magistrate to that said no-one could become king. The officer said he was not aware. Gacheru went on, like a seasoned lawyer, asking the poor man if he, indeed, knew that Gacheru was king. “If I told you today I am king, how can you prove otherwise?” posed Gacheru, to which the cop, now breaking into a sweat, said there was no room under the law for Kenya to have a king. “Can you then explain to this court how my saying that I am king has broken the law?” posed Gacheru again. The cop was in real trouble. “Which section of the law has been broken?” he went on, to which the cop fumbled for answers. “Can you show me which section of the constitution outlaws any mention of king in respect to myself? How would you know that I am not a king?” he asked. In one instance, the cop was so lost for words that he merely stared, forcing the magistrate to remind him to answer the questions. Eventually, Gacheru was jailed but set free by an appeal court, but by which time he had spent several months in the cooler. Apparently, the “king” had been stripped! Strangely, he was to meet Rinjeu in the streets after being set free but they neither acknowledged each other nor spoke. The “king” and his subject were meeting in rather inauspicious circumstances. Rinjeu has since died, but one of his feats was to send to the cooler a member of the “royal” family. Reporters cover strange cases! Saturday, December 20, 2014/ PEOPLE DAILY Editor’s Headache